[Page] THE PROLOGUE and EPILOGUE to the History of BACON in Virginia.
PROLOGUE.
Spoken by a Woman,
PLays you will have; and to supply your Store,
Our Poets trade to ev'ry Foreign Shore:
This is the Product of
Virginian Ground.
And to the Port of
Covent-Garden bound.
Our Cargo is, or should at least, be Wit:
Bless us from you damn'd Pyrates of the Pit:
And Vizard-Masks, those dreadful Apparitions;
She-Privateers, of Venomous Conditions,
That clap us oft aboard with
French Commissions.
You Sparks, we hope, will wish us happy Trading;
For you have Ventures in our Vessel's Lading;
And tho you touch at this or t'other Nation;
Yet sure
Virginia is your dear Plantation.
Expect no polish'd Scenes of Love shou'd rise
From the rude Growth of
Indian Colonies.
Instead of Courtship, and a tedious pother,
They only tip the Wink at one another;
[Page 2] You Civil
Beaus, when you pursue the Game,
With manners mince the meaning of—that same:
But ev'ry part has there its proper Name.
Good Heav'ns defend me, who am yet unbroken
From living there, where such Bug-words are spoken:
Yet surely, Sirs, it does good Stomachs show,
To talk so savour'ly of what they do.
But were I Bound to that broad speaking land,
What e're they said, I would not understand,
But innocently, with a Ladies Grace,
Wou'd learn to whisk my Fan about my Face.
However, to secure you, let me swear,
That no such base
Mundungus Stuff is here.
We bring you of the best the Soyl affords:
Buy it for once, and take it on our Words.
You wou'd not think a Countrey-Girl the worse,
If clean and wholsome, tho her Linnen's course.
Such are our Scenes; and I dare boldly say,
You may laugh less at a far better Play.
The Story's true; the Fact not long a-go;
The
Hero of our Stage was
English too:
And bate him one small frailty of Rebelling,
As brave as e're was born at
Iniskelling.
EPILOGUE.
Spoken by a Woman.
BY this time you have lik'd, or damn'd our Plot;
Which tho I know, my Epilogue knows not:
For if it cou'd foretel, I shou'd not fail,
In decent wise, to thank you, or to rail.
But he who sent me here, is positive,
This Farce of Government is sure to thrive;
Farce is a Food as proper sor your lips,
As for
Green-Sickness, crumpt Tobacco-pipes.
Besides, the Author's dead, and here you sit,
Like the Infernal Judges of the Pit:
Be merciful; for 'tis in you this day,
To save or damn her Soul; and that's her Play.
She who so well cou'd Love's kind Passion paint,
We piously believe, must be a Saint:
Men are but Bunglers, when they wou'd express
The sweets of Love, the dying tenderness;
But Women, by their own abundance, measure,
And when they write, have deeper sense of Pleasure.
Yet tho her Pen did to the Mark arrive,
'Twas common Praise, to please you, when alive;
[Page 4] But of no other Woman, you have read,
Except this one, to please you, now she's dead.
'Tis like the Fate of Bees, whose golden pains,
Themselves extinguish'd, in their Hive remains.
Or in plain terms to speak, before we go,
What you young Gallants, by experience, know,
This is an Orphan Child; a bouncing Boy,
'Tis late to lay him out, or to destroy.
Leave your Dog-tricks, to lie and to forswear,
Pay
you for Nursing, and we'll keep him here.
Licens'd,
Nov. 20. 1689.
J. F.
FINIS.
LONDON: Printed for Jacob Tonson, at the Judges Head in Chancery-Lane, near Fleetstreet, 1689.